Years ago, one of the cable providers drove me crazy with daily (sometimes more than one a day) solicitation calls. No matter how many times I told them I wasn't interested in switching, they kept on calling. When I complained to the company, they were reluctant to confirm what I knew – that they had no idea how many people were calling, how often they called, or what those people were saying when they called because they had offered 'fake jobs' to people who would not be employees but would get a commission for the accounts they brought in. The callers used robo dialers, (which will be a stop the stupid chapter on its own soon) that apparently didn't know that a dozen other callers had already left messages and the company could sidestep responsibility since the annoying callers were not their employees.
Since I have way too much time to spare, and enjoy (tremendously) annoying telephone solicitors and door-to-door religion pushers (stop the stupid chapter coming soon) as much as they annoy me, I decided to play. I answered their calls, acted super excited when they told me how many hundreds of channels I could get, and asked them to list the channels. Most of them listed a few of the most popular, hoping that would please me. I interrupted, frequently, to voice my opinions and ask questions. How often do they replay the movies? I am forever falling asleep twenty minutes before the end of a movie, so can they promise I will be able to catch them again soon to see how the story ended? Are they all in color because I don't like black and white movies, except for Bette Davis movies? Does their package include Bette Davis movies? I'm not a sports fan but might be interested in ESPN if it runs movies about athletes, like Bryans' Song. How long would it take the caller to run and ask someone who did know the answer to that question and why wouldn't he just put me on hold and check it out?
When I wasn't satisfied with the few most popular channels, most huffed and told me I was crazy if I thought they would read the entire list to me. I asked, "How will you react if the next time you go the grocery, an employee meets you at the door with a fully loaded cart and says you have to pay for chicken liver, rutabaga, white shoe polish, brown bananas, and potatoes with three-inch eyes if you want the milk and eggs? One guy told me that was crazy and I agree, saying that's what he was trying to do to me and I'm not crazy enough to fall for it.
Another told me I didn't have to watch channels I didn't like. "Like you wouldn't have to eat the groceries you didn't like?" I asked. He hung up on me.
One very patient caller read the entire list to me. I felt mean when I told him it sounded great – if he would just remove FOX, the religious channels, sports channels, and cartoon channels - and adjust the bill to reflect that I was only getting a small portion of what they offered. That wasn't possible and he couldn't believe I was not going to sign up after he read that whole list to me.
Anybody else old enough to remember when we first got cable? The selling point was that we could pay for television and not have to watch commercials. How did we get from that to not being able to watch television at all if we don't pay for it, and having thirty and sixty minute infomercials on some channels?
Why did we allow this to happen?
Tonight, I ran across a link to this on Facebook. Sadly, many misunderstood the reason DISH dropped FOX and gave them credit they didn't deserve. If they had made a conscious decision to stop airing the station that consistently pumps out misinformation and promotes racism and ignorance, I would have seriously considered switching. As you can see by Comcast's responses to letters they received asking could they, too, drop FOX, they aren't in the business (pun intended) of making socially conscious decisions to stop airing the station that consistently pumps out misinformation and promotes racism and ignorance, either.
I agree that a letter-writing, and phone-calling, and tweet-bombing, and every other way we can hold-their-feet-to-the-fire campaign is in order. It will take everyone doing it, and everyone doing it as individuals, not copying and pasting the same letter or reading a script into the phone. Maybe, if enough people get involved? Think it's possible?
Who's in? I'm seriously tired of paying for white shoe polish I'll never use and chicken liver I won't eat.
Fox Has Absolutely NO Journalistic Ethics, And Here’s A LONG List Of Their Lies (VIDEOS)
Stop the Stupid Lawn Chapter
1 comment:
I gave up TV some eight years ago or so without regret. Haven't missed it.
Telephone solicitors really irk me. There was a time when the no-call list did a good job of keeping them out, but now, doing business with pretty much ANY company gives them carte blanche to let ANY company their associated with call your for completely unrelated stuff. I find it very irksome, especially given that most that call me are robocalls, not people.
The only people who have called me recently are clearly phishers who claim to be from Microsoft to address a problem on my computer, but can't identify which of my nine computers it is or which system it's using and someone who sounds the same calling to ask if I've had one of several medical procedures, which is not information I give over the phone.
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